Gaza Dossier

Gaza Dossier

During 50 days of the past summer, the ongoing conflict between the State of Israel and Hamas reached devastating new heights. With great loss of innocent life in Gaza and constant shelling of Israeli civilians, the consequences of the last war are far reaching, first of all for the people of Gaza, but also for all sectors of life inside Israel.We asked our partners and friends to express freely their thoughts and ideas ranging from the international level to internal affairs, from journalistic report to their own account, and from practice to theory. The following is a compilation of their outputs, a dossier, and does not formally represent the official view of The Heinrich Böll Foundation Israel.To read the views of our colleagues in Ramallah please visit the website of the HBS Palestine & Jordan

It's too soon to fully analyze the impact of this war – especially since there are those who believe the war might resume. A few things are clear. In the short term, this war helped the extremes on both sides, as wars often do

For those on the left, simply beginning an operation without definite political objectives, and the terrible price paid for that decision with the lives of civilians and soldiers on both sides, was bad enough, particularly when accompanied by the loss of a window of opportunity for an Israeli peace initiative with the Palestinian Authority.

The most recent round of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has paused. Each side has experienced the period in a profoundly different way, and future policies that may even deepen the animosity. Read some of the main observations, questions, and speculations from our partners at +972 magazine.

By Dahlia Scheindlin

What we want

Our Foreign and Security Policy progam aims at broadening the traditional security discourse to include a human security approach which considers human rights as well as gender aspects. We provide space for NGOs, experts, media and government officials to debate ongoing regional and security policy developments and especially to develop strategies as well as opportunities for responding to or resolving diplomatic and security crises. By bringing Israeli peace and human rights NGOs together with Israeli decision makers and international policy makers, we also encourage the development of alternative political strategies which may contribute to the Palestinian - Israeli conflict resolution process.